The American West

The American West The American West, a new frontier, a new promise to those who immigrated to the land, and a land where legends and myths were born. With this exciting time came violence or the threat. However, today many only know the violence as portrayed by John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, and the producers and directors of the Hollywood Western. Violence in many aspects is what helped shape the New American West because the people of the Old American West were the major target of violence.A century ago, the American West, and the process of homesteading and Americanization that took place in the lands West of the Mississippi River was seen as a triumph of American drive, ingenuity, and courage; a sheer act of will that required hard work, perseverance, and above all, a spirit of independence and individualism.In the decades following the closing of the Frontier (as pronounced by Frederick Turner in 1890) , this perception of the West changed dramatically.Route 248 at the 5600 West TRAX stationThe old view of a divinely inspired spread of Americanism changed to a more ambivalent view by mid-century, and finally, to an openly hostile view today that Western society was (and is) violent, murderous, and chaotic. We are told now that the West, after the coming of the white man, was a land of sadistic Indian murderers, psychopathic outlaws, and misfits who had abandoned the more peaceful life back in the good ol' U.S. A.Whether promoting or condemning the West, though, novelists, filmmakers, and even historians never shied away from giving us many images of murdering Indians, roaming outlaws, crazy misfits, but what in an earlier era would have been abnormal behavior in films and images of the West, became standard behavior for citizens of the West in later times.There is certainly no doubt that Native American...

Learn About Wine Legs or Tears

Learn About Wine Legs or Tears What does it mean when a wine is said to have legs or someone refers to tears of wine? Wine legs or tears of wine are the droplets that form in a ring on the glass above the surface of a glass of wine or other alcoholic beverage. The drops continuously form and fall in rivulets back into the liquid. You can see the effect in the shadow of this glass of wine. Cause of Wine Legs While some people think wine legs are related to the quality, sweetness or viscosity of wine, they are really indicative of the alcoholic content of the wine and are caused by the interplay between adhesion, evaporation and surface tension of water and alcohol. How Wine Legs Work Capillary action draws a small amount of wine up the surface of the wine glass above the liquid. Both alcohol and water evaporate, but the alcohol has a higher vapor pressure and evaporates faster, producing a region of liquid that has a lower concentration of alcohol than the rest of the wine.  Alcohol has a lower surface tension than water, so lowering the concentration of alcohol raises the surface tension of the liquid. The water molecules are cohesive and stick together, forming droplets that eventually become heavy enough to fall back down the glass in streams into the wine. History of the Explanation of Wine Legs The effect is called the Marangoni or Gibbs-Marangoni Effect, in reference to Carlo Marangonis investigations into the effect in the 1870s. However, James Thomson explained the phenomenon in his 1855 paper, On certain curious Motions observable at the Surfaces of Wine and other Alcoholic Liquors. Test It Yourself The Marangoni effect more generally refers to the flow of liquid caused by surface tension gradients. You can see this effect if you spread a thin film of water over a smooth surface and add a drop of alcohol to the center of the film. The liquid will move away from the alcohol drop. Swirl a glass of wine or liquor and observe the wine legs or tears of wine on the glass. If you cover the glass and swirl it, wine legs eventually will stop forming because the alcohol will be unable to evaporate.